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Perfectly Fluffy Easy as Pie Pancakes

i think i’ve mentioned here before that growing up, i wasn’t a huge breakfast fan. i mean, hello, someone pass me the beefaroni or the leftover chicken and rice pilaf, please. i think when i really fell in love with breakfast was, sadly, when i started drinking. you know, because when you’re hungover in college, all you want to do is run to the dining hall and stuff your face with an oversized omelette and greasy homefries. you all know i love homefries. can’t live without ’em. lord, don’t ever send me to a place where homefries are not a breakfast standard. anywho, as i’ve gotten older, and hence, matured into the wise lady i am today, i’ve come to realize that there’s really lots to love about breakfast – from eggs benedict (i really need to master hollandaise) to fluffy pancakes like the ones you see above.

in my mind, there’s little that screams sunday morning like a pile o’ fluffy white pancakes. and ladies and gents, when i say pancakes, i don’t mean ihop, and i most certainly don’t mean bisquick. i can eat a bisquick pancake faster than you can say “from a box” – but with a recipe like the one below, there’s really no need for a box mix. pancakes are S-I-M-P-L-E, folks. as in, you barely need a recipe, and unless you’re the kind of person who stuffs their sweaters into their oven and owns only one pan (new yorkers, i’m looking at you), you likely have everything you need for these babies in your kitchen already.

this recipe (which i modified slightly) yields fluffy, light, melt in your mouth pancakes. i ate mine with melted butter and nothing else, but they’d be great with chocolate chips or berries mixed in, and even better with some spiked maple syrup.

The Recipe

You’ll need:

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

3 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon white sugar

1 3/4 cups milk

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla

3 tablespoons butter, melted

the key to this recipe is that you don’t do the mixing with a plain old spoon or fork – you use a whisk. this releases a ton of air into your batter, making for the fluffy pancakes sunday morning dreams are made of.

to make, sift together the flour, baking powder, salt and sugar in a large bowl. in a smaller bowl, beat the egg, then mix in the melted butter, vanilla and milk. make sure you give the butter a bit of time to cool after you melt it – you don’t want to cook the egg! make a well in the center of your dry ingredients, and pour in your wet ones. mix slightly with a wooden spoon, and then whip with a whisk to beat fully.

your batter might be a bit thicker than the usual bisquick shiz, but don’t fret. this is to be expected.

heat a lightly oiled griddle (i use canola oil spray from trader joe’s) over medium to high heat. scoop your batter onto the griddle, about 1/4 cup of batter for each pancake. cook a few minutes on each side, and serve hot.